Little remains of the old Vocation community in Monroe County, Ala.

Coley Chapel United Methodist Church.

The drive along the Neuschwander Road is one of the most pleasant drives that you can take in the southern part of Monroe County. This six-mile stretch of dirt road runs from State Highway 21 at Uriah to Butler Street at Coley Chapel and takes travelers across Little River and the Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway tracks.

I was in this part of the county on Friday afternoon and pulled off the road just west of the railroad tracks. I walked to the top of the tracks and found myself surrounded by miles of open farmland. There didn’t seem to be anyone around for miles.

While there isn’t much to see at this railroad crossing today, I knew this wasn’t always the case. Way back in Alabama’s early history this area was known as the Hadley community. It was once the site of MacDavid’s Hotel, a stop along the Old Federal Road that was loved by travelers as far back the 1830s for serving “plenty of very nice pork.” Hadley was once so large that it even had its own post office from 1894 to 1909.

In the 1920s, this community changed its name to Vocation, and “downtown” Vocation was located right where the railroad tracks cross the Neuschwander Road, about half a mile west of Butler Street. The name change came about due to the establishment of a sizeable school known as the Coley-Blacksher Vocational School for Boys, which was in operation for at least four years, from 1921 to 1925.

The school was built in 1921 about a quarter of a mile east of the railroad tracks and was large enough to house 50 boys, who were taught vocational skills and modern farming practices. Several hundred acres of land had been donated to the school by the wealthy Blacksher family and A.M. Coley. This school even featured a 22x50-foot swimming pool, where students were given some of the earliest formal swimming lessons in county history.

A sizeable community grew up around this early school, and Vocation even had its own post office from 1922 to 1932. Vocation was also a railroad stop, but if it had a depot, it must have been a small one. For folks living in this part of the county, the Vocation rail stop was an important link to places like Monroeville, Atmore and beyond.

My grandmother grew up in this area before World War II, and she told of how she and her family would walk from their house on the Old Stage Road to catch the train at Vocation. To catch the train, you’d walk up to the train stop and drop a flag that let approaching train conductors know you wanted the train to stop. They would often get on the train, go to Atmore and return once they’d finished their business there.

Today, the most significant landmark at Vocation is the Coley Chapel United Methodist Church, which is visible from the railroad crossing on the Neuschwander Road. This church is located on Butler Street, just north of the Monroe-Escambia County line. Despite this church’s apparent age, there is no graveyard anywhere nearby, so one is left to wonder where the congregation buried its dead in years past.

In the end, let me hear from you if you have any additional information about the early history of the Vocation community, the Coley-Blacksher Vocational School for Boys or Coley Chapel UMC. I’m especially interested in any old ghost stories, local legends or Indian lore from this part of the county, so if you know of anything along these lines, please let me know.